This article examines the role of the welfare state with reference to the design and dissemination of improved models of wood-fired cooking stoves in rural India. Drawing from the feminist sociological perspective, the author examines the role of the state in shaping women's needs. Broadening the meaning of the term welfare services to include development interventions targeted at disadvantaged groups, the author argues that power relations lead the state to define what women's needs are, exclude them from development interventions, and make them dependent on the state. The definition of women's needs as reflected in Indian state policies shows a bias that assumes that women are essentially homemakers, and the relatively lesser power that poor women exercise both in the public and private spheres constrains them from expressing their needs. Women organizing around conscious interests challenge the boundaries within which their needs, as women, are perceived.
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